Draymond Green Will Watch Warriors-Cavs From Next Door At A’s Game Tonight

Rick Chandler 01:49 pm, June 13th, 2016

So the NBA protocol for Draymond Green is that he can be at Oracle Arena until two hours before tonight's Game 5, but has to be out by then or, presumably, he'll be placed in chains and handed over to the Freys. Of course you know that Green was retroactively suspended for tonight's edition of the NBA Finals for playing the sack tapping game with LeBron on Friday.

Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless actually had a discussion this morning on what the NBA would do if Draymond bought a ticket and showed up in the crowd. But that was just filler -- actual ESPN reporters say that Green will watch the game from a suite next door at the Oakland Coliseum (sorry, O.co Stadium), where the A's are playing the Rangers beginning at 7:05 p.m. TMZ is reporting that Green declined an invitation to throw out the first in that game.

Then if Golden State wins, he'll be in perfect position to hurry back and join in the celebration.

"Draymond, we'll let you celebrate if you guys close out in 5." "That's gre..." "But you have to attend an A's game." "Dubs in 6 is fine."

The Warriors and A's playing on the same night happens quite a bit. They did it twice in the same week in early April. I formerly covered the A's for a Bay Area newspaper, and once they played on the same afternoon as a circus was going on next door at Oracle. There was -- and this is true -- an elephant tethered in my my parking spot.

Meanwhile, the elephant in the room is the question of exactly what Draymond said to LeBron to get the latter so riled up in Game 5. The Undefeated:

According to sources, Green looked James dead in the face and called him a “b—-.”

One NBA player in earshot of the trash-talk told The Undefeated that James responded by saying that he was the father of three kids and a man.

Green responded back, according to the player, by saying: “You’re still a b—-.”

That's "bitch", in case you're confused.

So apparently that's one of the worst things you can call someone on the streets. But another unwritten rule is that in the context of an NBA game, you don't bring it up to the media afterward.

How will Draymond's absence impact the game? I think the NBA signed the Cavs' death warrant with this suspension. It could go a whole different way, of course, but I think that the only chance Cleveland has of beginning to fight out of this hole is to hope that Golden State is flat and overconfident tonight. That, obviously, won't happen now.

You want to talk about motivation? Tonight at Oracle will be a circus.